The Sage Handbook of Peace and Conflict Studies

The Sage Handbook of Peace and Conflict Studies offers a comprehensive exploration of the complexities of violence, conflict, and peace from a global, interdisciplinary perspective. The handbook addresses the traditional Western-centric approach while emphasizing the need to integrate Global South perspectives to create a more inclusive and transformative understanding of peace and conflict.

While important voices in peace and conflict studies have long stressed the need to not only address direct violence but also structural and cultural one, certain strands of the field have upheld conservative knowledge production and reinforced unequal power structures. This volume seeks to challenge these biasesby foregrounding critical and decolonial approaches that emphasize gender, race, culture, global history, and political economy. Its diverse chapters invite us to question mainstream assumptions and promote a broader, more inclusive analysis of peace and conflict.

The handbook explores the evolution of the field, highlighting the impact of historical events and the role of oppositional knowledge in political change. It offers a critical overview of theoretical approaches, emphasizing reflexivity, inclusivity, and the importance of local actors in peace and conflict dynamics. Additionally, it examines how cultural and disciplinary assumptions shape peacebuilding and conflict transformation, and it critiques traditional global narratives on issues like governance, climate change, and human rights. Finally, the handbook presents real-world case studies that integrate themes of decoloniality, race, gender, and power inequalities across diverse global contexts.

By centering the Global South and integrating interdisciplinary perspectives, this handbook provides valuable insights for scholars and practitioners committed to fostering a more equitable and just world.



Section 1: History, Knowledge, and Power in Peace and Conflict Studies

Section 2: Theory and Analysis in Peace and Conflict Studies

Section 3: Practices and Approaches in Peace and Conflict Studies

Section 4: Global Issues, Institutions, and Change in Peace and Conflict Studies

Section 5: Case Studies in Peace and Conflict Studies

"Peace and conflict studies is in desperate need for such a handbook that presents a wide and diverse collection of chapters tackling difficult current challenges facing our global and local communities. This handbook offers much needed approaches to deepen our analytical understanding of root causes of structural violence and nonviolent ways to confront them. It also introduces fresh and critical global south perspectives that often are not part of the academic peace and conflict studies. It is a must read for students, scholars, and practitioners who wish to expand their critical analytical frameworks and skills." -- Mohammed Abu-Nimer

"The Sage Handbook of Peace and Conflict Studies is an incredibly novel new contribution to the field. It stands out from the various competing publications in its robust response to recent critiques of the epistemological biases in the field. It achieves this by including a much wider variety of voices than many similar volumes, thus providing for a more inclusive and diverse set of perspectives on the past, present, and future of peace and conflict studies."

-- Gearoid Millar
The Sage Handbook of Peace and Conflict Studies is a significant contribution to the field, offering a comprehensive effort to decolonize peace scholarship. Featuring renowned authors in decolonial approaches and leading voices from the Global South, this volume revisits core topics in Peace and Conflict Studies through fresh, critical lenses. Striking a thoughtful balance between theoretical exploration and practice-based insights, the handbook serves as both an introductory resource and a critical collection of decolonial perspectives.  -- SungYong Lee

This is an extremely comprehensive Handbook that fills a significant gap in Peace and Conflict Studies. By placing an emphasis on authors and perspectives from the Global South, the Handbook is able to connect more directly to how peace and conflict are made on the ground. Through a mix of theory and case studies, the book it able to critically examine how peace is made and remade. Books like this are much needed in a turbulent world.

-- Roger Mac Ginty

Maia Carter Hallward is Professor of Middle East Politics and Director of the PhD Program in International Conflict Management at Kennesaw State University’s School of Conflict Management, Peacebuilding and Development. She serves as Associate Editor of the Journal of Political Science Education and served for eight years as the Executive Editor of the Journal of Peacebuilding and Development. Hallward is the author or co-author of seven books and dozens of peer-reviewed journal articles in topics including civil resistance, women’s leadership, human rights, identity politics, and activism related to Israel/Palestine. Hallward has lived and worked in the Levant for over four years, including a term as a Fulbright Scholar in Jordan. She holds a PhD in International Relations from American University’s School of International Service. Ji Eun Kim is an Associate Professor of Political Science at Eastern Mennonite University, where she teaches courses on human rights, political reconciliation, genocide and mass atrocity prevention, and East Asian security. Her research lies at the intersection of International Relations, Comparative Politics, and Peace Studies, and her areas of specialization include transitional justice processes after large-scale political violence and international institutions and norms. She holds a Ph.D. in Political Science and Peace Studies from the University of Notre Dame.Cécile Mouly is a research professor and coordinator of the research group in peace and conflict at FLACSO Ecuador. She holds a Ph.D. in International Studies (University of Cambridge) and has published on peacebuilding, peace processes and civil resistance, including a 2022 handbook of peace and conflict studies in Spanish. She possesses practical experience in conflict transformation and peacebuilding in different countries with various organizations (UN, The Carter Center, OAS), and has facilitated trainings on conflict analysis, peacebuilding, nonviolent action and peace journalism. She is one of the resource persons in “Conflict Prevention: Analysis for Action” of the UN System Staff College, one of the coordinators of the summer program “Conflict Transformation Across Borders”, and a member of the executive committee of the regional institute on strategic nonviolent action in the Americas. She was part of the Ecuador team of the Colombian truth commission from 2019 to 2022. Timothy Seidel is Associate Professor of Peacebuilding, Development, and Global Studies at Eastern Mennonite University in Harrisonburg, VA, USA. His writing has appeared in various journals including Postcolonial Studies, International Politics, Journal of Peacebuilding and Development, and Third World Quarterly. He is co-editor of Resisting Domination in Palestine: Mechanisms and Techniques of Control, Coloniality and Settler Colonialism (2024) and Political Economy of Palestine: Critical, Interdisciplinary, and Decolonial Perspectives (2021). Zubairu Wai is Associate Professor of Political Science and Global Development Studies at the University of Toronto, Scarborough. He is the author of Epistemologies of African Conflicts: Violence, Evolutionism, and the War in Sierra Leone (Palgrave, 2012), which won the ATWS Toyin Falola Africa Book Award, and co-editor (with Marta Iñiguez de Heredia) of Recentering Africa in International Relations: Beyond Lack, Peripherality, and Failure (Palgrave, 2018). His research takes up epistemological questions regarding the nature, conditions, and limits of disciplinary knowledge and practices in international relations, development studies, conflict and security studies, and African studies. Specifically, he focuses on how the intersections of power and coloniality frame the discourses and political economy of knowledge, violence, conflict, development, and state formation in Africa, and the Global South more broadly. His most recent book, Thinking the Colonial Library: Mudimbe, Gnosis, and the Predicament of Africanist Knowledge, which interrogates the contaminating vectors of the colonial archive and its implications for epistemic decolonisation, will be published by Routledge early 2023.

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